What is a finished forging? What level is considered finished..

[jlpservicesinc]

I love that box..  It's funny but to me that is amazing work and something I'd like to tackle.. 

[Mark Ling]

I dont have much to add to this conversation, I'm in about the same boat as RanchmanBen. I like clean forged surfaces, with as little scale as possible. That's probly my biggest thing. If it is over oxidized than to me it isn't finished, and either requires grinding/rasping, or some more planishing at lower temperatures and brushing with a block brush. On hammers, I dont file or polish anything other than the faces most times. I have before, but when I do that I have to charge more, and not everybody will pay more for shiny tools, though some will. Like Ranchmanben said, I am never fully satisfied with my forgings, there is always something I could have done better, but that is what strives me to do better.

Lots of the time I will bring what I forged that day and put it in my room, and before bed each night and at other times I will sit and look at the pieces and see whats wrong with them, and also what I like about it. I will do that for a week until the next weekend and I go to the forge, and either will fix the pieces that I think could be easily fixed without messing with other parts of the piece, or I will forge another one, a better version of the last on (hopefully).

But back to the question of what I considered a finished forging. Very little scale, smooth with no hammer marks unless they are intentional texturing, and also I need things to be symmetrical and even on things that are supposed to be. If a hammer isn't symmetrical, or isn't straight, I try to fix it but sometimes you can't fix them without spending more time than it's worth and it goes to the scrap pile, or is used as a personal shop hammer. My scrap pile is full of "failed forgings" though I recently brought buckets full to the scrap yard and got rid of them. Though I guess I shouldn't say failed forgings, cause on each one I learned something. Either what to do, or what not to do. I think it's important to have high quality standards. I see so many people selling items that, no offense, should be at the scrap yard. Most of the time it's people who have been forging for a year or less, and are trying to make some money off the hobby already. But maybe those items are up to there standards. I was going through totes of products I have made for shows because I have an upcoming one and I was going to price stuff. While going through the totes I found stuff from maybe a year ago that was not up to my standards, and was put in the scrap pile. It goes to show that peoples standards change, or at least mine do. Its not that a few years ago I didn't like the clean forgings free of hammer marks, it was more of that I didn't know how to get that finish and didn't have the experience to. As peoples skill levels change so does there standards. 

I know I was all over the place and maybe didn't answer the question the best, but I'm not the best with words anyways.

                                                                                                                                              Littleblacksmith

[Ranchmanben]

You say you’re not the best with word but I’m more than twice your age and you stated a few points that I didn’t even attempt to type out because I would have gotten the point across like I wanted. Well said. 

[jlpservicesinc]

Littleblacksmith, You said it very, very well..  Covering many facets and seeing this in words is inspiring.. 

  I know that Alec Steele and Brian Brazeal were some of you early inspirations..  Do you have anybody who you have found inspiring in more recent times?   Any forgings you have seen that you were like Dang, I wish I could do that as cleanly or finished? 

Again, very well said/written.. 

I to used to sleep with my forging so to speak. (right on the table near my bed).  Sometimes I would sketch them to find different lines or to refine what I was looking at,, 

Mind, Eye, hand, Mind....  

[Mark Ling]

Well thank you RanchmanBen. 

Thank you jlpservicesinc. Yes, Brian is still a large inspiration, Alec not so much anymore as he is more annoying than inspiring and our interests don't line up as much anymore. I was a subscriber when he had less than 25,000 subscribers and he was much more personable and more educational, and did more hand forging and tool making, now he is a people pleaser and forges knives and other weapons. Jakob Faram recently has been an inspiration. His work is so darn clean. his hand forgings and his tools are both really clean. seems so many people seem to focus on quantity over quality, but I think for him it's the other way around, all is stuff is really nice, and it's different. A man that I forge tools with, he has been an inspiration when it comes to finishing stuff. I don't always spend as much time finishing stuff as I maybe should but he does and his finishes look nice, and he does a variety of finishes, while I only do a few.

                                                                                                                                                                 Littleblacksmith 

[Ranchmanben]

Mark, I with you on Jakob Faram. He’s somewhat inspirational to me as well, very clean designs and very clean forging. Check out John Williams too. 

[Mark Ling]

I looked him up he does very nice work too.

                                                                                                                                                          Littleblacksmith 

[Coalforge]

You work it until just before you ruin it, then you stop.

 

[jlpservicesinc]

That's funny...

 

Way back in the early days this would have been very much on target and then figuring out where or when to stop....

Not so much now..  

[anvil]

Perhaps the real question should be "WHY" do we finish our iron.

Answer that and the what becomes self evident.

And finish must include any applied coating or developed texture as its a part of the process.

Developed texture can be anything from some degree of peter tracks,,, I mean,, peen marks( ) to make it look hand forged to the techniques needed from the very first heat to the last to develope a velvety, warm, texture that invites you to touch it and feels warm to your touch.

[jlpservicesinc]

took me 10 years to get to the velvety touch you are talking about..  I found it much easier to create working wrought iron but getting it to happen consistently in mild steel was a challenge.. 

 

I have been polling on the side at demo's with items forged.. With various completely forged items and the conscience has been interesting..
 

[Frosty]

Mark: What you said about so many folks focusing on quantity over quality makes me point something out. You already know this but it's something to keep in mind. 

Part of this thread involves how long it took to learn to make a finish we can accept or is acceptable to the customer. Practice practice practice. Quality MUST follow quantity in a hand skill. Yes?

So, that's what folk with lesser skills focus on. Whether they realize it or not they're working at doing it enough to get good.

In some cases though popularity can be the bane of quality. Doing large production runs will lower quality until you've learned the skills sets necessary to do high production AND high quality.

Make sense?

Frosty The Lucky.

[jlpservicesinc]

On 9/27/2018 at 1:03 AM, Coalforge said:

You work it until just before you ruin it, then you stop.

 

This is funny because..  I was at a demo called the "Fitchburg forge in"..  There must have been 20 smiths there of varied longevity..   I asked the question to the group yelled out and the younger smiths shouted this exact comment back at me..  

[MC Hammer]

11 hours ago, Frosty said:

In some cases though popularity can be the bane of quality. Doing large production runs will lower quality until you've learned the skills sets necessary to do high production AND high quality.

That's a good bit of wisdom Frosty.  I just did a group of 4 flint and steel strikers - my first ones - and found I wasn't entirely happy with how they turned out.  I wanted them to be nearly identical and realized that I need to make a couple dozen more before I learn the skills necessary to have the finish I want to see in the end.  I also learned I need to make a jig because part of the problem was getting them to look alike but yet fit in the metal boxes I'd bought for them.  

This got me to thinking a lot about this very subject.  Frosty touched on something that makes sense.  I see a lot of smiths getting into the hobby and making a large variety of things with marginal results.  It seems that mastering one thing before moving on to another is not in practice.  So I can make acceptable steel strikers, but with more time and learning I'll figure it all out and be able to make excellent strikers......then I move on to the next thing.  If I take good notes on my findings in my bench book, I'll know what to do the next time I need to make strikers.  I've always felt I need to do something until I can do it with excellence, which speaks to finish and this topic.

[anvil]

My journey has been different. 

No matter what the job, that's how good I was at that moment in time. one off, or a run of all the same, my skill level of the moment went into all equally. 

imagine what your customers might think if their run of 10 was a lesser than the guy who ordered only one? You are sunk.

And I don't call it "production". I call it "limited production". 

The difference is there is no reason to compete with those boys,, their tooling is different than what a blacksmith will use. And, they cannot possibly match our limited production and one offs and make any money.

Why?

Lol, strictly because of "the finish"!